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Unformatted text preview: ang that telephone call! We always come
up against it.' 'We do indeed,' agreed Poirot. 'It is curious.' 'It's just possible that if Captain Paton
climbed into his uncle's room and found him there murdered, he may have sent it. Got the wind up,
thought he'd be accused, and cleared out. That's possible, isn't it?' 'Why should he have telephoned?' I
185 'May have had doubts if the old man was really dead.
Thought he'd get the doctor up there as soon as possible, but didn't want to give himself away. Yes, I say
now, how's that for a theory? Something in that, I should say.' The inspector swelled his chest out
importantly. He was so plainly delighted with himself that any words of ours would have been quite
superfluous.
We arrived back at my house at this minute, and I hurried in to my surgery patients, who had all been
waiting a considerable time, leaving Poirot to walk to the police station with the inspector.
Having dismissed the last patient, I strolled into the little room at the back of the house which I call my
workshop 1 am rather proud of the home-made wireless set I turned out.
Caroline hates my workroom. I have kept my tools there, and Annie is not allowed to wreak havoc with
a dustpan and brush. I was just adjusting the interior of an alarm clock which had been denounced as
wholly unreliable by the household, when the door opened and Caroline put her head in.
'Oh! there you are, James,' she said, with deep disapproval.
'M. Poirot wants to see you.' 'Well,' I said, rather irritably, for her sudden entrance had startled me and I
had let go of a piece of delicate mechanism. 'If he wants to see me, he can come in here.' 'In here?' said
Caroline. 'That's what I said - in here.' Caroline gave a sniff of disapproval and retired. She returned in a moment
or two, ushering in Poirot, and then retired again, shutting the door with a bang.
'Aha! my friend,' said Poirot, coming forward and rubbing his hands. 'You have not got rid of me so
easily, you see!' 'Finished with the inspector?' I asked.
'For the moment, yes. And you, you have seen all the patients?' 'Yes.' Poirot sat down and looked at me,
tilting his egg-shaped head on one side, with the air of one who savours a very delicious joke.
'You are in error,' he said at last. 'You have still one patient to see.' 'Not you?' I exclaimed in surprise.
'Ah, not me, bien entendu. Me, I have the health magnificent. No, to tell you the truth, it is a little complot
of mine. There is someone I wish to see, you understand - and at the same time it is not necessary that
the whole village should intrigue itself about the matter - which is what would happen if the lady were
seen to come to my house for it is a lady. But to you she has already come as a patient before.' 'Miss
Russell!' I exclaimed.
'Precisement. I wish much to speak with her, so I send her the little note and make the appointment in
your surgery.
You are not annoyed with me?' 'On the contrary,' I said. 'That is, presuming I am allowed to be present
at the interview?' 'But naturally! In your own surgery!' 'You...
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